Note 320 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW (continued 2)

According to the writer in the Law Review, I, 367, two thousand pounds is not an overcharged estimate. "In some cases even the preliminary proceedings in Doctors' Commons will cost nearly as much. From the evidence of Mr. Swaby, the Registrar of the Admiralty Court, before the Select Committee, p. 33, it appears that even in an ordinary litigation, with moderate opposition, and where the witnesses are at hand, the expense of obtaining a definitive sentence of divorce à mensâ may reasonably amount to 1700 l.; and this merely to lay a foundation for the proceedings before Parliament, and quite independently of the action at law. It is well known that Lord Ellenborough's divorce cost 5000 l."—Ibid., 367 n. 6. At the same time the cost of a divorce a vinculo in Scotland was only 25 l.: ibid., 367, 368. But in the Evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Lords, 1844, 39, the expense of getting a full divorce is then put at about 800 or 900 pounds.